


Support Structures

by eerian_sadow



Series: Avalon [78]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: F/M, severe angst. might need tissues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-29
Updated: 2008-08-29
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:16:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9600488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: Chromia was Elita-1's rock. Jazz isn't that, but they're learning to manage.





	

“We lost Chromia last night.”

Coming online to those words—no matter how gentle First Aid’s tone might have been—was almost as bad as losing Optimus. Chromia had been more than just her second in command. She had been her best friend, her rock and her confidant when things were going badly. The other girls were wonderful, and they were good friends after forty eight thousand vorns together, but the older femme had always been the one to help her find enough hope to continue for another day.

Even when the _Ark_ was lost, Elita-1 hadn’t felt as alone as she did right now.

“Tell me it wasn’t suicide,” Hot Rod-- _Rodimus_ \--replied.

“No,” the young medic replied. “She just…stopped. Doctor Porter called it dying of a broken heart.”

 _Dying of a broken heart…_ It was the most accurate way to put the feeling that Elita could imagine—one she remembered that humans had hearts instead of sparks.

“Do you really think that’s what it was? She just couldn’t live without Ironhide?” Rodimus sounded horribly weary. His term as Prime had come too hard and too quickly. He had never learned to be a leader, and now he was thrust into a role he was unprepared for.

“Yes, I do.” First Aid’s tone remained gentle. Elita wondered where the young mech had leaned his professional manner—Ratchet had never managed to be so gentle with any of them for very long once the war was in full swing. “They’ve been bonded for a long time. Long enough that her spark wouldn’t stay lit without his. It was kinder this way; her processor was no longer stable.”

Elita-1 had to agree. Chromia’s processor had destabilized when Ironhide had gone offline and the older femme had spent most of her time simply whispering his name repeatedly. It was kinder for her not to have to live with that kind of infirmity.

Rodimus Prime sighed. “How’s Elita-1?”

“I am still functional,” she replied. She rose from the medical berth and looked Rodimus over carefully. Exhaustion and weariness were etched into his faceplates. Elita felt vaguely guilty about that; if she hadn’t been lying in her berth allowing her grief to keep her away from the Autobots, some of his strain might have been lifted.

Her people needed her—Rodimus Prime needed her—to be a leader, not grieving inconsolably.

“I guess you heard us,” First Aid said quietly.

“I did. It was a kinder fate than watching her processor continue to fragment.” The words made her sparkache worse, but they were the truth. As the medic had said, Chromia and Ironhide had been bonded for far too long for either of them to really survive the other’s deactivation.

“I’m sorry you had to find out that way,” the medic told her. “I wanted to tell you in person.”

“Do not apologize for the things you cannot control,” Elita said. “It was gentler than some news I have received.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

She stared over the ruins of the city from the highest of the lookout posts and wondered how everything had gone wrong so quickly. They had been losing the war, but that had been true even before the _Ark’s_ disastrous last mission. Optimus had plans, hopes that stood a better chance of becoming a reality than any of the other he had come up with in the past because of the allies he had made. There had finally been the hope of life beyond the war for them.

That hope was a dead now as Optimus himself.

Elita-1 turned her thoughts away from Optimus and to the new Prime. Rodimus needed her knowledge and experience as much as he needed Ultra Magnus’. He had asked her to step into the command crew as third in command. It was a position she had once held under Optimus, until she had taken command of the femmes and created a second army. She had wanted to accept, but the offer brought back memories.

Memories that were too painful to look upon.

“I can’t,” she told herself. “I cannot do what he asks. I cannot be for him what I was for Optimus.”

“He wouldn’t ask you to.” The voice that spoke was gravelly with age and she could identify Kup as the speaker without turning around. He was the only mech she had ever met that had been able to age long enough to sound as old as he really was. “He’s just actually being smart enough to know he has no idea what he’s doing.”

“I know that.” Elita didn’t try to disguise the sadness in her voice. “But I will never be able to call him Prime without thinking of Optimus and remembering what I’ve lost. I could never be helpful, because I would always be grieving.”

“You can’t heal if the wound is constantly reopened,” Kup agreed. “And the kid understands that, even if he doesn’t always act like it.”

“I have to do something, though. The Autobots need good leaders and Rodimus and Ultra Magnus cannot do everything themselves.”

Kup put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “And you need something to keep you busy. I understand. Just remember that Earth isn’t the only place with Cybertronians and the Autobots aren’t the only mechs Optimus was fighting for.”

Elita turned to him, optics questioning.

Kup gave her a small smile. “Just think about it for a little while. And get some rest; your watch has been over for about ten minutes.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Jazz was listening to music in the house Blaster and the Twins had built for him and Bluestreak. He looked as sparkbroken as she felt, and Elita wondered if either of them would ever really recover.

He still found a smile for her when he realized she was lurking in the doorway. “What can I do for ya, Elita?”

His smile was as infectious as she remembered, even if it was ragged around the edges, and she found herself smiling back. “I have a request for you.”

“I’m listening.” She got the impression that the saboteur had needed something to give him purpose as much as she had.

“Help me rebuild Cybertron.”

Jazz gave her a hard look. “You’re serious about that?”

“Yes.” She nodded, more sure of this than of anything else that had crossed her processor. Rebuilding their home—or at least starting the project—was something that she had to do. “I was created to nurture life, not take it. I became a warrior to protect life because that was the only option left to me. Now I have a chance to do what I was made to do all along. And I cannot think of anyone better suited to help me than someone who raised a sparkling through the kind of adversity we always faced.”

“Rodimus wants me to stay on with special ops,” Jazz told her.

“I know. But I believe that is work that can be done from Cybertron as well as anywhere else they may choose to make their base. And I want you in my command.”

The saboteur was silent for a moment. “Can I recruit anyone I want?”

“Anyone Rodimus will let you have. I trust your judgment as much as I would trust my own.” Elita watched as Jazz’s posture turned from defeated to something closer to how he had held himself for all the vorns she had known him.

It was relieving—almost liberating—to realize that someone needed you. Heartening to realize that you still had a purpose.

“I’m in. I need a change of scenery right now, anyway.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Jazz was not her rock. He was her friend and her support, yes, but he would never be able to be the kind of rock that Chromia was. Their losses were too similar and many days the both kept going only because one of them stopping would stop the other as well. It wasn’t a healthy relationship, but it was all they had.

Their team worked well together, for all that they were a mishmash of personalities and talents. She hadn’t quite known what to expect when Jazz wanted to bring the Twins on board, but they didn’t cause problems—when Rodimus let them have the Twins, anyway. The remaining femmes had almost been a given; they had all wanted to help when Elita said she and Jazz were going back to Cybertron and neither of them had wanted to turn the girls down—Cybertron was their home too, after all. Bluestreak had followed Jazz, as she had suspected the young sniper would, and rounded out the team.

She only wished that a few others might have volunteered or said yes when Jazz approached them. Managing a small team was easiest, but more hands would have made the work go more smoothly.

When he was on hand, Jazz managed things superbly. He was as capable and easy going as she remembered, and all the members of the reconstruction team got along with him well. And he always lent an audio when her own burdens became too much to bear.

For a while, Elita-1 wondered who did the same for Jazz. Eventually, she decided that she might be better of not knowing; Jazz would come to her if he needed her and she would always be there for him.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“I dreamed last night, Jazz.”

She had been afraid to say those words the first several times it happened. She had been afraid that she was going crazy, that her processor was fragmenting like Chromia’s. But Jazz had pushed her until she described the experience and then he had assured her that both he and Bluestreak did the same.

Emdee had apparently told them it was even a normal response to severe trauma. She couldn’t help but notice that no one called it a glitch, though that was what it obviously was.

“You wanna tell me about it?” Jazz gave his usual calm reply and handed her an energon cube.

“I dreamt that Optimus came back to us. That he led us all into a new age for Cybertron.” She took a drink of her energon. “I dreamt that the war was finally over and we could all rest.”

Jazz’s response to her statement was atypical. Usually, he would smile and assure her that she still hadn’t gone crazy—or that they had gone crazy together if she was. Today he froze, his expression one of pure shock and his optics fixed on a point over her shoulder.

She turned, wondering what was wrong.

Her energon slipped from suddenly numb fingers and splattered across the table, the floor and her legs. “Optimus…?”

He stepped toward their table hesitantly, almost unsure of himself. So unlike Optimus. “Elita, are you well?”

Her spark sang at the sound of his voice and _reached_ for its other half. Even as her mind disbelieved, her spark recognized its mate. “Are you real?”

“I’m real, Elita.” Optimus swept her into his arms. “I’m real.”

Neither of them reacted when Jazz fled the room, but Elita-1 felt horribly sad for her friend.  



End file.
